Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-14
JAS. II. MARTINDALE,
The Casa Tailor,
No. 504 Main Street.
EARs.

* sz
EARS.
4 Sensitive Bostonian Narrates his Peculiar
Woes.
Boston Post.
| heard of pathetic outgrowth OF ner'
vouS s"nsibility yesterday. A professional
man who lives at West End, aud who is
not only painfully self conscious man,
but also one given to observing things
about him with great minuteness, has be-
come so scutely susceptible to the essen
tial ugliness of the human ear that he
scarcely sees anything else in the people
about him than their ears. TO 9 physl-
clan, an expert in nervous affections,
whom he was wise enough to consult,
this gentleman told his story somewhat
after this fashion: at was as many as
five or SIX years ago tnat the sight OF q
particularly hideous pair of ears, one of
which had been slit in CHASTITY manner
in some accident or fight, set me 10 re-
fecting on the ordinary caprice of ProVi-
dence in setting, in the most conspicuous
place upon the head of its curious earthly
achievement, such utterly absurd and un-
slightly cOnITivances of human ears. The
ear is useful, no doubt; but might not an
infrite ingenuity and an omnipotent
choice have provided man with an audi
tory appliance less hideouS than this con-
voluted eXcreseence? l was led to ask
myself, is there any such thing as beau
tiful human car? | looked up all the pas
sages in polite literature in which the
human ear is referred to, and found not
only that such passages are extremely
| few, but that the beauty referred to-ail
the comparisons of delicate, pink-edged
feminine, to the translucent interiors Of
sea shells and the like are simply compar-
alive. No poet ever thought, 20 fGr rs l
could find, of finding absolute beauty in
the ear. II is only as pendant or an &C.
compartment, less hideOus than usual, TO
| the beautiful heSd ard face vi lovely
woman that the actual ear itself, as apart
| from the faculty of hearing, ever becomes
tOierable in poetry. In art the ear is i
thing to be dissembled; no realist was
ever so unblushing as faithful TO paint
the ear IS it is, Photography reveals 1t in
all It's Ugliness, but poetry bears the same
relation to art that the dissection of the
body does to the love of humanity. The
running Of these through my mind led me
to start sort of Holy Grail quest for q
really beautiful human ear, and, ct the
same time, found myself searching out,
whenever got upon street car or a rail
way train, and as l walked down the
crowded streets, all the ugliest ears, with
the instructive eagernesS OF connoisseur.
TIE ear habit grew upon me. l
became sort OF collector OF
ears. When ! came into a rail
way train filed with people my eye
ran down the long rows U1 ears next the
aisle to see whether there was s vacancy
in the devious lines that l might fill win
my own. That row OF ears TO man who
had fallen into the habit OF observing
nothing else but the ears, was horribly
suggestive of q sea serpent! ! say all
this began five orsiX years ago, but Of
course my manja-fOr such it has become
did not ali at once take this serious
form 1t has been gradual grow h.
Now find it threatening, perhaps aOt my
mental balance, for feel capable of main
tanning that, but my PEACE OF mird Ger
lainly, ana all my Old sensi5llity to the
beauty of the human form and the lowell
ness of life about me. Ny o d keen sense
of the beautiful lament, as fallen an
gel might lament the joys Of paradise.
For me there is nothing in the world but
ears, ears, ears. The pleasure that l
sometimes feel in meeting q specimen less
hldeuus than the rest does not repay me
for the offense witch the uniform dead
level Of ill shaped growths iDfi'cts upon
me, and am resolved, If medical science
can do anything for SO strange malady,
to take the utmost advantage of it. If it
could so influence my organs OF sight as
to make il impossible for me ever again
TO see the human ear at all, it would be i
consummation devoutly 10 be wished.
| understand that the eminent physician
consulted in this case was nonpulsed for
time, but has at last success ded in SO
influencing tue sufferers thoughts and at
tention by diverting them to other chan
nels, that he is already somewhat less
poignantly conscious of the ears he sees.
That the doctor is, in fact, fighting the
old mania with a new one, and intends to
check the new before it, il its turn, snail
take possession of the patient, as did the
other. The case, l have no doubt, viii
suggest to more than one reader somsE
thing OF similar sort in his knowledge or
experience. 1t is only one of many NOR
bid outgrowths of the keen conscious
ness, the rawness of sensibility that over
work and intense mental strain have
! superinduced.